“Don’t be afraid. Keep searching. I am with you”

For Charbel [a Muslim convert], baptized in 2017, visions and messages set him on a path to discover Christianity.

It was during Ramadan. As he was walking in Beirut after morning prayers at the mosque, Charbel heard a voice from the sky, words which he had previously never heard before: “Glory be to Jesus, the only Son of God. And glory to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.”

“It was shocking for me,” Charbel recounted to the National Catholic Register.

Charbel, who grew up in a Sunni enclave in Beirut, didn’t know any Christians with whom to share his experience. That Christmas Eve, Charbel was studying at home. “I saw the Virgin Mary for the first time in front of me. And she told me, ‘Don’t be afraid. Keep searching. I’m with you,”’ Charbel recounted.

“All I know how to say is that it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. From the moment I saw her, I felt peace in my heart. I felt like I’m home,” Charbel recalled of the vision.

He tried to meet Christians on social media, but to no avail.

He would see the Virgin Mary again on Christmas Eve for the next three years. “And she would always say the same exact words,” he recalled.

Not until after the last vision did Charbel become friendly with a Christian he met at a party. …

He was baptized on the feast of the Holy Cross eight months later and chose the name Charbel in honor of Lebanon’s St Charbel.

National Catholic Register